Sogeti is offering a new suite of consulting services to help customers in the retail and manufacturing sector using IBM WebSphere Commerce create a Center of Excellence (CoE) to customers in the U.S. Ireland, Sweden, India and the Netherlands.

This fall, IBM is offering new software and services to help companies better improve their business processes to take advantage of SOA agility benefits. On tap: Better BPM modeling, updates for BPM Healthcheck, and a Web 2.0-based 'business spaces' to boost IT/business collaboration.

A leading provider of Business Processing Outsourcing to insurance companies, McCamish Systems, is streaming its complex and costly point-to-point B2B architecture using an ESB, and in the bargain is also improving flexibility and response time to its customers.

Information Builders is marrying Ajax to its WebFocus business integration platform to provide a lively, less-costly thin-client for custom business reporting. The technology will be available later this year. IDN takes a quick peek and how a BI and Ajax blend could spell new opps for devs.

Information Builders is marrying Ajax to its line of WebFocus business integration platform to provide a thin-client approach to custom business reporting. The technology, announced this week, will be available later this year. IDN takes a quick peek and how BI and Ajax may push business demand for both among end users, creating new dev opportunities.

When it comes to integrating Java-based apps with .NET, SOA may not be the best choice -- for today, at least. Take a look at a useful real-world, step-by-step approach that is helping leading IT architects and devs draft their own "interoperability requirements" matrix. This work forms the basis for some of the interop Best Practices at Avanade, a leading .NET/Java integration firm.

In 2005, Rich Internet Apps (RIAs) will be an important key to unlocking the power of end-to-end SOAs, says Scott Cranton, an IT architect and consultant. See how RIAs will bring "loose coupling" between desktops and middle-tier services, and forge the crucial "last mile" link between PCs and next-gen SOA back office apps.

The Eclipse Foundation sent word this week that it will release Eclipse 3.0 for download June 30. Integration Developer News interviews Eclipse project lead Erich Gamma to get details on Eclipse's (4) main directions. Get insights on Eclipse 3.0's: new UI, rich client support, better navigation, and steps toward support for Java-like languages and IDE-independence.

A stunning report from web services analysts Zapthink for portal developers recently predicted that today's web-based portals will prove "wholly inadequate" for loosely coupled, distributed web applications. Read why the solution may be "rich clients," of all things. And why such an approach could save devs lots of time -- and headaches.